


Tipping Point

by anamatics



Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (Live Action TV), Elementary (TV)
Genre: Crack, Crack Crossover, F/F, Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Past Drug Use, prompt: superheroes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-27
Updated: 2015-09-27
Packaged: 2018-04-23 15:52:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4882822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anamatics/pseuds/anamatics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“Yes, but I’ll not go trying to make inroads into the Indian market only to encounter a monkey king on a flying cloud."  Moriarty drains the last of her wine.</i>
</p><p>Joan discovers that there is magic in the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tipping Point

Sherlock has google news alerts set up in about fifteen different languages on their shared desktop computer.  Joan has discovered this quite by accident, trying to get in and figure out her google shopping account (it’s still a mystery, she prefers paypal), so when a news alert in Japanese appears in the notification bar at the bottom of the screen, Joan ignores it, until a second, and then a third one pop up in short succession.  The first two are in Japanese, but the third is in English.  Joan clicks, curious, and her eyes widen.

The article is little more than an eye-catching headline and a scant paragraph of uninformative text, but it’s enough to get Joan curious.

“What the hell is a Sailor V?” she mutters to herself, closing the window.  It sounded like some sort of weird Japanese thing that she’d never have a hope at understanding.

“Funny you should ask."  Joan jumps about a foot in the air.  Sherlock has appeared and is reading over her shoulder.  His eyes are narrowed and his lips are forming the words as he reads them, apparently his reading is not as good as his speaking in Japanese.  It’s surprising to see a rare form of human weakness.  "Click into the article, would you?” He asks.

Joan does and Sherlock lets out a small humming noise, his interested noise, as he reads.  Ten minutes and a quick run for a kanji dictionary later and he’s got this almost fond smile on his face.

“Watson,” he says, lips erupting into a grin.  “She found her friends.”

“Who?"  Joan has no idea what’s going on.

"Sailor V.”

“What?”

Sherlock sighs and crosses his arms over his chest, scowling.  “Around the time that I met Irene,” he begins, closing his eyes and clearly pushing those bad memories away.  “There was a masked heroine that was working in London.  She wore a sort of… sailor outfit.” At Joan’s confused look he added, “Japanese school girl meets Navy Whites.”

“Oh okay,” Joan frowns.  “She ran around in a skirt?”

“An impossibly short one at that."  Sherlock shakes his head.  "There was a strange series of occurrences where people… for lack of a better word losing all of their energy.”

“That’s impossible,” Joan protests.  She finds herself slipping back into a mode of thought engrained into her with more than a decade of schooling. “People don’t just lose their energy; there must have been an external factor.  Was it hot?”

“I’m not saying that it made any sense, Watson,” Sherlock answers.  “But that was what was happening.  Irene -  _Moriarty_  - she was a lot like you, looking for a rational explanation.  There wasn’t one.  People were losing their lifeforce, essentially, and no one had any idea how to stop it until this masked heroine shows up.”

"She stopped them?”

“Yes.  And then she disappeared.”

Joan glares at him, because there is obviously more to this story.

“I may have… figured out who she was, and I may have… met her.”

“Well, spill.”

Sherlock pulls a chair up to sit beside Joan and opens up a new tab on the browser.  He goes to youtube, types in a name that Joan doesn’t recognize and pulls up the first link.  “Her name is Aino Minako—”

“The singer?”

“I wasn’t aware you listened to Japanese pop music, Watson.”

“Sherlock, she’s sort of a big deal.  At least she is in the magazines my mom reads.  Not that I read them.”

“No, of course not.”

Sherlock closes the tab, indicating the news article with the mouse.  “This is interesting, because it’s discussing a group of five of them.  When I found her, she mentioned that she wouldn’t be in London forever.  I was out of my mind on heroin at the time, but I remember the haunted look on her face.”

“She made headlines for surviving an operation on what was supposedly an inoperable brain tumor.  That was why I read the article in the first place.”  Joan bites her lip.  “Maybe it was because of that?”

“You’ve spent a great deal of time speaking with soldiers, haven’t you?”

Joan nods.  “A lot of the homeless that I work with are vets, and I had… a client before who was an ex-marine.”

“Do you know how a soldier has a sense of duty engrained into them, to live and die for a cause?"  Sherlock’s expression is closed off, staring at a grainy cellphone picture of three girls in impossibly short skirts jumping out of the way of a beastly creature that Joan had no name for.  "That girl, Aino Minako, she had that.  She was all of fourteen years old at the time and she had it.  She was willing to die for whatever mission she’d been set…"  he looks down at his hands.  "I wanted to save her, but I couldn’t.”

Joan reaches out and touches his arm.  “Maybe you weren’t meant to?”

“Perhaps.”

-

She’s at another of their lunches.  They are not dates, not at all.  Because that would be admitting too much and Joan doesn’t want that.  So instead they are lunches.  They sit across from each other at tiny cafe tables and pretend that this isn’t exactly what it is.  They share food, they argue about wine.

This was never meant to be like this.

“Do you remember the attacks in London?”

“You’ll have to be more specific.” A small, closed-off smile.  It is a simple of quirking of lips, as if amused by a private joke.  “There have been a lot of attacks in London.”

Puffing out her cheeks, and knowing that showing frustration is not the wisest move, even as she does so, Joan stabs viciously at a piece of summer squash on her plate.  “The ones—” she wants to groan, because she can’t quite begin to believe the story Sherlock had told her.  “The ones where people seemed to lose all their energy.”

Eyes narrowing, Joan’s companion leans forward.  Her fingers close, claw-like, around the stem of her wine glass.  She looks like a caged animal, full of a fear that Joan can’t reconcile with her face.  “Is Sherlock on about his Sailor V obsession again?” Her face betrays no emotion at all, the smooth mask of Moriarty falling back into place almost as quickly as Joan had managed to pull it aside.  “That case consumed him in a way that I have never seen before, Joan, you must understand.”

Joan tilts her head to one side, for she’s never known Sherlock to obsess unless it’s over Moriarty herself.  He fixates, yes, but he is usually quick to move from topic to topic once a case is solved or his interest is lost.

“Irene - I - knew him when he was still indulging in his vices.  He never truly used until that case came along, it was mere dabbling before then.  Cocaine to keep him awake, heroin to help him sleep.”

Joan isn’t sure that she wants to hear this.

“While Irene’s death may have sent him down a spiraling path that lead to his disgrace in London and his relocation here, it was that case and all its oddities that had him using more regularly than I had ever seen before."  There is something oddly frank about Moriarty’s tone, the way that she’s speaking, the way that she seems to actually want to tell Joan this story truthfully.  Joan isn’t sure how to handle honestly from her.  "He was fixated, obsessed, he could not stop, he would not stop searching for a reasonable answer to a question that had none.”

Moriarty sips her wine, eyes never blinking.  It’s unsettling, being under such scrutiny.  Joan knows that this is part of the game, trying to piece each other together.  “Do you believe that there are things in this would that cannot be explained by science or mathematics?”

She looks down, away.  A tell, a lie at her lips.  She refuses to accept a world where there is anything else.  Science and math are the language of the universe, to believe that there could be more… is not something that Joan thinks she can stomach.  “No.”

“This was the case that broke Sherlock’s belief in that as well.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“So you do not allow him to pursue that girl again.  She’s better off in Japan, with her compatriots, where she cannot hurt him anymore.”

Joan frowns.  “She hurt him?”

“She destroyed his worldview.”

“She was a fourteen year old girl playing hero in a sailor uniform, Jamie.”

“She was so much more than that, Joan."  Moriarty shakes her head, sips more wine.  She’s already downed most of her glass and they’ve only just gotten their food.  "There is a myth about them, the nine planetary warriors.  It’s based on the story of Kaguya-hime - the moon princess. Do you know it?”

“I’m Chinese-American, and my mother hates Japan with a hatred most people reserve for Nazis and the 9-11 hijackers.  So no.”

Joan knows that these little digs at her heritage are Moriarty’s way of feeling out Joan’s limits.  She’s heard enough of the terribly wrong assumptions by this woman enough to understand that they are a smokescreen to what is really going on.  To know that this is an investigation, a pulling of her pigtails in the most hurtful way possible.  Joan hates it, but perhaps it is the fact that she can get her own digs in right back that keeps her coming back for more.

Perhaps she’s just a masochist.  Or perhaps it’s knowing that if Moriarty is fixated on her, she’ll leave Sherlock alone.

“They’re said to have magical powers.”

“Now I know you’re full of shit.”

“Darling, I’ve been completely honest with you.”

And that’s the rub, Joan knows when Moriarty is lying, even when Moriarty thinks she’s gotten away with it.  Joan’s seen through her lack of a tell to the easy way lies fall off her tongue.  Moriarty is being honest now, and it’s that that, more than anything else, that scares Joan.

“How do you mean, magical powers?”

“The news reports them as elemental - there’s one that controls fire, another water, a third ice.  Terrible things are happening in Japan these days, Joan.  It seems that these girls are the first line of defense."  Moriarty shrugs, gives a disinterested little sniff.  "This is why I avoid enterprise in Asia, too complicated, what with all of that to account for in my plans.”

Joan rolls her eyes.  “Your accountant is Pakistani.”

“Oh, well spotted Watson. But he is from Pakistan by way of Manchester and therefore has had all of that…"  Moriarty gives a small sigh, as if she hates the idea of it as much as Joan does.  She waves her hand, fingers wiggling in a gesture that Joan takes to mean magic. "Stripped from him by a youth spent in England.  And you’re American, as you so often point out.”

“You and my mother would get along great,” Joan grumbles.

Moriarty’s face lights up at the idea of meeting Joan’s mother, and Joan scowls at her.  Fat chance.

“Yes, but I’ll not go trying to make inroads into the Indian market only to encounter a monkey king on a flying cloud."  Moriarty drains the last of her wine.  "And Japan is not an option because of the more volatile nature of whatever it is that lurks there, just beneath the surface.”

Joan thinks this might be the most ridiculous conversation she’s ever had.  And she lives with Sherlock Holmes, ridiculous conversations are a part of her daily life.

“Next you’re going to tell me that you avoid Tibet because of Yetis.”

“No, those are just a legend.”

The idea that there are people have to be considered superheroes in this world is not entirely new to Joan, but it is a bit odd to encounter one that is so closely connected to the people she’s grown close to.  Joan doesn’t like it.  She doesn’t like how her entire view of the world is caught up in a fundamental understanding that Moriarty seems to be dead set on destroying.

Joan eats another piece of summer squash, contemplating asking the approaching waiter for a very strong martini when he gets a chance.  “So Sailor V?”

“Technically Sailor Venus - Sailor V was just a cover.”

“How the hell do you know all this?”

“Joan, I trade in information.” She grins.  “It is my business to know such things.”

“Whatever.” There’s a pause, Joan starts again.  “Sherlock knows who she is, or at least he says he does."  Joan sighs, fidgets with her napkin.  Picks it up and puts it back down.  She sips her water.  "I… don’t think he obsessing.  He seemed genuinely happy that she’s with her… fellow sailor outfits.”

“Senshi,” Moriarty says.  “Or Scouts, depending on how it’s translated in the paper.”

“How many languages do you speak?”

A mysterious smile and a raised eyebrow, it is not the answer Joan wants.

There’s a moment when Joan wants to grind out that she’s only allowing these dates because she likes the verbal spar, she likes the company and the stolen kisses in the car.  She likes the puzzle that Moriarty presents effortlessly.

They’re all the same, really.  They have that same trait, no matter how superior Moriarty thinks herself to be.

“So they’re Sailor… Senshi?"  Joan says the foreign word with some hesitance.  "What’s that mean?”

“Warrior."  Moriarty reaches over and steals a fork full of Joan’s squash.  Joan glowers at her as she pops it into her mouth and lets out a surprised sound.  "That is excellent.”

“Yes, so stop stealing it."  Joan fights down the urge to wrap her arm around her plate and growl.

"You wound me, Joan.”

“It’s the least I can do.”

“It is heartening to hear that Sherlock is not fixated on that girl again."  Moriarty pushes a piece of what Joan thinks is potato towards the edge of her plate, clearly a peace offering.  Joan jabs it with her fork.  It’s actually a parsnip, and very good.

"Do I need to be worried?”

“Not unless there is some supernatural threat to New York."  Moriarty’s lips purse.  "And there are agencies within your government that are in charge of preventing that.”

“Good to know.”

They lapse into silence.

-

“Ah, Watson, you’re back."  Sherlock pauses.  Sniffs.  "You reek of her."  It isn’t an accusation, just a statement of fact.

Joan’s lips feel bruised and she knows her hair is a mess.  She doesn’t say much when they part, Moriarty prefers to express whatever it is that she wants to say with actions, with forceful kisses, all that she wants from Joan conveyed in a language that they both speak. One that isn’t full of lies. “She told me about the case in London.”

"I suppose that she would have had something to say about that case.  That and the Moran case were the two I worked while she was actively in London."  Sherlock screws up his face, twisting into a scowl.  "No matter, though, that case opened my eyes to all the possibilities of the universe.  Come see.”

He’s found a video, grainy and uploaded to instagram by someone whose icon is a cartoon bunny.  Joan watches the battle unfold, flashes of light.  She watches a dark-haired girl summon a flame from nothing, her lips caught in a silent scream as a beast slams into her back and the very earth splits underneath her and a taller woman grabs the girl with the fire out of the way.  And there, in the middle, is the girl that Moriarty identified as Sailor Venus.  She has a sword in her hand and a grim expression on her face.

The video cuts out and Sherlock bounces on the balls of his feet for a moment, sneaking a glance over at Joan when he thinks she’s not looking.

“I don’t understand how that’s an international pop star.”

“Everyone needs a day job, Watson." 

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Joaniarty Week last year, figured it deserved to be properly archived.   
> The timelines are IMPOSSIBLY fudged. Deal with it.


End file.
